Coming to Terms...

Ten Minutes…Just Stuff

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:37:45 GMT

Today started out on a sour note, with terrible news from one of my best and longest-term ethereal friends. Such an evil way to begin a day…and yet life is full of jarring realities. They are at once shocking and predictable, on some level. My heart sighs and sobs for my dear friend. Her news seemed to have put the day in an entirely different perspective than it would have otherwise been.

When someone you love is visited by tragedy, you look at each moment of your own life—past and present—a shade differently than before. You feel grateful that you are not the one walking that walk; you feel helpless that you cannot bear some of the terrible burden. You look at the sun with the realization that it is shining as always above your own head, but is possibly as remote as Pluto to this person you love. Sadness, empathy, helplessness, gratitude…a strange cocktail of emotions to carry through the day.

Still, I had a hair appointment I had to keep. And keep it I did.

I am now sporting the shortest hair I have had since I was about ten years old. I have been so frustrated with my hair. Menopause seems to have turned my barely acceptable mane into a completely unmanageable rat’s nest. Two months ago, I had my recalcitrant locks cropped to about chin length. It was nice…it was presentable. But after two months, it had already grown to the point where I could no longer deal with it. So I resolved that on THIS appointment—which I had made two months ago when I had my last haircut—I was going to do something completely different. Cut it the hell off, and do some kind of color I had never had before.

So now, I have short, purple hair.

I know that doesn’t sound great, but it actually looks okay. It’s different. It’s manageable (I think…I haven’t tried to style it myself, yet.)

And my stylist kind of gave me the whole day-spa treatment. She waxed my eyebrows (Ouch!) and my “cat whiskers” (god, I love menopause…not!) She offered a little mini-pedicure, which was particularly indulgent. Hot soak, nail clip, painted toenails and a bit of a foot massage. Ahhhhh….!

All in all, a good/bad day off. But I think I’m ready to dive in with both (painted) feet tomorrow morning...

Goodbye Summer

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:47:36 GMT

Fall has slammed down like a guillotine. Officially, Autumn does not start for almost three more weeks, but the season is here now and seems disinclined to take “no” for an answer. I’m already swabbing heavy condensation from my car windows before I can take off down my driveway in the early, misty mornings. The crabtrees lining my way to the cafe are shooting off little sparks of red and orange, teasers for the real show coming in a few weeks. My planters are lush, green and bursting with blossoms, yet I know in thirty days or less they will be frost-bitten and bedraggled.

It was such an odd summer. Short and hot and drizzly and humid, with a couple of truly spectacular thunderstorms thrown in for good measure. The good weather has held when we needed it to, but the rest of the time, it has gone off on several unusual tangents. We’ve hardly had a week with no rain…very unusual for this part of the world. So the summer that never really was has receded down the road and made room for my favorite time of year to unfold grandly, albeit a bit prematurely.

I wish the coming of autumn was not so symbolic of my life. I don’t want to care that the days are shortening and the end of the year is roaring up on me like a freight train. I just want to stand outside, open my arms wide and gather it all in. Into my lungs, into my arms, into my spirit.

Welcome, beautiful season. Let us embrace and dance a lingering pas de deux before the winter curtain falls.

Tags: Fall is here

Ten Minutes 9/03: Oddness

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:27:55 GMT

A lady came in for a coffee this morning, carrying one of those little mini-animal carriers made out of cute print fabric with little doggies on it. I assumed she was carrying a…little doggie. Some kind of purse dog, like an itty-bitty Chihuahua or whatnot…you know, the ones that cost $100 an ounce.

It crossed my mind to tell her she could not have an animal in the restaurant, but she seemed inclined to leave it in its little crate, and I didn’t think it was hurting anyone, as long as she didn’t take it out and let it run around.

Eventually, I became overwhelmed with curiosity, so I walked up and asked, “Who do we have in here?”

She looked at me kind of sheepishly, “It’s my rat.”

Yep. A rat. It was, in fact, a “rex” rat—like as in it had steely grey, curly fur. Like a “rex” cat.

It was a really cute rat. But it was a rat. Lady got her coffee, zipped up her rat carrier and went on her way…

A short time later, a girl walked up to the counter and asked, “Do you eat snake?”

“Uh, what?”

“Snake. Do you eat snake?”

“Noooo…can’t say as I ever have. Why?”

“Well I have some great pieces out here. Really cheap. About three dollars a pound…”

“Um… No thanks.”

“Okay!” And she turned around with a big smile on her face and went her merry way.

No shit. A door-to-door snake-meat salesperson. I guess.

I thought the full moon was next weekend…

Cleaning House

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:47:42 GMT

Last Wednesday, "Dumb-Ass Rehire" called in sick about an hour and a half before her scheduled shift. Mind you, she was working the evening shift—on at 5 pm—and presumably had been sick all day. Now, I know these children have a tendency to sleep until noon, but, still…

When I asked her what was wrong, her reply was, "I don’t know." What a great answer! Not, "I’ve been throwing up since last night," or "I have a fever of 102," or even "My throat hurts so bad I can’t swallow." Just, "I don’t know."

Here is a girl who, two months ago to the day, called in to tell me she wouldn’t be able to work her shift because she had homework to do (she dropped the class after a week and a half…) Here is a girl who quit with no notice last January; called me the morning of her shift and told me her life was a shambles and she needed to move too far away to work. Here is a girl who came back to me three months later begging for her job back. So I, like a sap, took her back. Bad move on my part. Oh well.

After four months of struggling to make her into an adequate employee, I had had it up to my eyeballs. And she just happened to lame out on me the day I was making next week’s schedule. Bad move on her part.

My labor has been totally out of control this summer, partly because I have been making use of some fortuitous over-staffing to give myself a bit of a breather. I’ve been able to step back, gather my wits about me, and get some administrative stuff done that has needed doing for, oh, about two years. But the economy being what it is, I knew I would have to make some changes soon. I was hoping to cut the staff through natural "back-to-school" attrition. Well, "Dumb-Ass Rehire" wasn’t going back to school, but I cut her back to two days on next week’s schedule anyhow. Reasoning that when you start cutting, you cut the dead wood first.

This apparently didn’t set well with "D-A R", because she called me fifteen minutes before she was supposed to be at work today and said, "I quit!"

Fine. Saves me the trouble of having to fire your sorry ass.

We slogged through an unusually busy day (of course) without her. With a little help from the intrepid husband, dishwasher extraordinaire.

Much as this little episode does solve more problems than it creates, it still left me with some more of that negative energy to work out when I got home from work

I re-arranged my living room.

A few more café disasters and I will have caught up on all my neglected housework…

Ten Minutes 8/29~~Perhaps They Listened

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 05:35:00 GMT

Once again, I’ve been wandering the halls of my archives. I went back to 2005 this time…back to when I still had the time and brainpower to write things that were really worthwhile. Back before I became thoroughly sick of the political state of our nation—the posturing, the deceit, the muck-flinging. The utter vapor-lock prevalent in the Democratic Party.

I dug up an entry I had written in September of that year, “A Political Admonishment.” This post went into some detail about my personal p olitical history and my increasing disillusionment with the Donkeys. My closing line was,

Let this be a warning and a wake-up call to the Democratic Party. You cannot afford to assume. You cannot afford to let us "idealists" trickle away. Speak to our ideals, ensure our loyalty. Inspire us to vote for you, because it’s increasingly likely that a vote against the current regime will not necessarily fall in the Democrats’ column. You need to stop the bleeding.

Three years later, it looks like the Democratic party has taken my admonishment to heart. Surely someone in the higher echelons read my post and set about acting on it… ;)

All kidding aside, the Obama candidacy appears to fill the order for an inspirational person, policy or direction for the Dems. Here is a candidate that urges us to stretch beyond the old high standards we thought forever lost, upward toward ideals we didn’t dare to envision. Not just a candidate who stands for change from the policies through which we have slogged desultorily for the past eight years. Here is a candidate for historic change. For raising the nation to a level of open-mindedness and inclusiveness we had thought were decades away, if indeed they were ever in the cards at all. The darkness of the divisiveness, hatred, selfishness and fear-mongering of the Bush Administration has brought us to the threshold of a promise brighter than we could have imagined.

Is it too bright? Will we reach for it, or shield our eyes and turn away?

Or will someone shoot out the light…

Fear vs Hope

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:05:09 GMT

Try as I might, I can’t completely separate myself from the bonfire of inanity that is the Democratic National Convention. I heard Bill Clinton’s speech yesterday. And I caught a good portion of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech today. It’s not that either of them had nothing worthwhile to say. And, believe me, I am eternally grateful that I can listen to words coming out of an aspiring candidate’s mouth without seething with so much anger and frustration that I’m likely to grab the nearest object and tear it to shreds with my bare hands.

It’s just that I know everything they say is…just words. Abstract promises. It’s an attempt—a noble attempt, I’ll confess—to drag American political rhetoric out of the gutter of hatred, and out from under the bed of quavering fear and paranoia. But is it having any effect? Are the idiots who have carried George Bush on their shoulders as if he were the conquering hero, who have worn his ignorance and ineloquence as a badge of honor…are those stupid sheep who have appeared to be in control of the country for the past eight years listening? Are they getting it? Or are these earnest men and women in Denver preaching so eloquently to the choir? The minority choir who will go down to defeat again this November, unable to drag the nation back onto a course toward high ideals, dignity and moral rectitude.

I’m of two minds about the coming election. I look at the repulsive mob that has taken over our country—the ones who have prospered under the Bush/Cheney policies of fear, selfishness and dishonesty. They are huge, and they are strong. And they are not likely to let go of their hold on power very easily. And I am afraid to what lengths they will go to keep what they have.

Things could get very ugly.

But then, I think, what better time for a Barack Obama to sweep to victory? On the heels of the most disastrous administration to have hit Washington in living memory? This might be the perfect storm, the cosmic coming together of every possible circumstance to make an historic presidency possible. Now. Certainly never before, and possibly never again. At least in my lifetime. Perhaps our young people, flexing the muscles of their franchise for the first time, will be the force for change that ultimately unseats the evil oligarchy that has dug in its heels in our nation’s capital.

There is hope.

But I am afraid to hope. The events of the last eight years have destroyed any faith I may have had in the ability of the American people to make wise choices when it comes to whom they will hand the reins of power.

So. We will see. In approximately 67 days, we will see.

Tags: Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention

Ten Minutes~~Chauvinism is Alive and Well

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:45:27 GMT

I’ve worked in food service for thirty-five years. In all those years, I’ve managed to ignore the male dominance of the field . I’ve gone about doing my job, sometimes the only female among a group of males…and I always managed to, eventually, command their respect. In time, I believed that old “the man is in charge” model had become a thing of the distant past.

Oddly, in the past two weeks, I’ve been slammed in the face by two separate incidents of…let’s call them inaccurate assumptions based on the “boss=male” model that, obviously, still rears its ugly head in our society. And it really pissed me off.

On Monday, I went to answer the phone at the café at about 12:30, the middle of our typically busiest hour of the day. “Hi!” said the male voice on the line. “I’m calling because I’d like to make you aware of a great marketing opportunity in Columbia County…”

“Ummm…this is a restaurant, and we’re in the middle of our lunch hour, so this is a really bad time to call…” (I hate telephone solicitors, and I don’t even try to be nice or polite; I just put it all out there and then hang up.)

“Well,” says the guy, “Usually The Boss is around…”

Oh. My. God. You didn’t just say that.

“Uh—I AM the boss.” And I slammed the phone back into the cradle.

I only wish I had thought to pleasantly ask him who he represented so I knew exactly with whom I was NEVER going to do any kind of business under any circumstance. Ever.

Today, this little old man toddles in the door of the restaurant, walks halfway to the counter and asks about soup. My counter girl tells him about our soup and the prices. He actsas if we're asking him to pay an arm and a leg. But he pays for a bowl. And then he says he doesn't want the cheese bread that comes with it. He only wants crackers. Counter girl takes him his bowl of soup, and he sets about eating it.

In the meanwhile, my Sysco rep has arrived, looking all clean-cut and business-like and MALE in a shirt and tie. He and I are behind the counter comparing two different brands of napkins when the little old man walks up to the counter with a pack of crackers in his hand. And I say, “Do you need something else?”

And he says, “Yeah, I want to talk to him.” Looks at my salesman and says, “Did you ever think of getting better crackers in here?”

Sysco rep and I look at each other, momentarily at a loss, and then I say, “Well, this man is just a salesman. If you want to talk to the boss, that would be me.” Then Little Old Man goes on a little old man tirade about how we need to get Premium crackers. These crackers (house brand of my old grocery supplier) are no good. He’s surprised we don’t give them awayfree. Okay, let’s forget the inanity of the whole situation. And the fact that we DO give the crackers away free. The point is he continued to address my salesman as if he were the one in charge… AUGHHHH!

I feel like I have somehow fallen through a time warp back into the sixties…

Ten Minutes 8/26~~I'm Still Here

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:31:06 GMT

Okay, so it’s not still Tuesday, officially. But to me, as long as I have not yet gone to bed, it’s today.

Rather than tomorrow.

Or something.

This evening, I decided to while away a few hours going into the “Coming to Terms…” archives. I went right back to 2006, the year we bought the café. And I have to say, it left me wondering why I continued on this entrepreneurial road.

Sales were terrible. I had no pool of at least somewhat decent employees from which to choose. It was a struggle every day.

But I showed up. I figured it out. I delegated. I hired. I learned.

And…I’m still here. Not only has the Old Town Café weathered the storm. But so has “Coming to Terms…”

I never stopped writing. I never could. Readers have come and readers have gone. People I considered old friends have moved out of the “neighborhood,” never to be heard from again. New people have come onto the scene, read and commented for a few months, and evaporated.

But I’m still here. And in approximately a month, I will celebrate the fifth anniversary of this blog. Five years. Seems short and yet incredibly long at the same time. In my heyday, I had almost two dozen friends I ran to and asked to kiss my boo-boos, or shared victories with, or exchanged philosophy with. Now, it’s not nearly so many. But to those of you who know who you are…

All my love…

…and thanks.

Ten Minutes 8/25~~Why I Hate Wi-Fi

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:05:40 GMT

I swear, I’m going to have to off the wi-fi at the café. I don’t know how much good will I’ve sown with the thing, and it has been the source of some of the most traumatic interactions I have had with “customers.” Customers in quotes because they really aren’t customers. If they were, they wouldn’t so resent being asked to buy something, or move to a smaller table, or wrap up their hours-long internet sessions so we can close the restaurant.

Not everyone who uses a free wi-fi connection at a restaurant is an ass-hat. But the tendency toward ass-hatism does seem to run in the breed. They are not just freeloaders, they are militant freeloaders. With a penchant for hollering, blustering, threatening and promising revenge when they don’t get what they want—which is free, unmolested access to any available wireless internet signal, no strings attached. Apparently I maintain my nice atmosphere and play my soothing jazz, offer clean restrooms and cushy leather seating for their comfort alone. There’s no one else in the world; and the concept of a paying customer taking priority over their freeloading butts never enters their minds.

Today’s exchange ultimately deteriorated to Mr. Internet Freeloader (after having bought a drink only because he was asked to do so and proceeding to make use of my facility for over an hour) finally packing up his $3500 laptop and attempting to trespass into my kitchen to shout his parting jab at me. At which point I went on the attack, insisting that he get OUT of my kitchen, and OUT of MY restaurant before I called the police. And I did not whisper.

Luckily, this all happened nearly at the end of my shift, because the day was thereafter completely shot. I ate dinner, came home, and went on a 90-minute cleaning binge in an attempt to channel some of that bristling negative energy into something positive. So now, I have a jerk-off customer to thank that I have a clean (well, it looks better than it did J) house, and I can sit here writing about my crappy day without watching the animal hair tumbleweeds roll down the hall.

Is that what’s known as making lemonade?

Dealing with the Inevitable

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:26:35 GMT

I gave in and got a new phone today. It didn’t make sense to keep paying for a phone that didn’t work. Even when I wanted it to, which was rarely.

I decided that all I really wanted in a phone was that it had the ability to assign different ringtones to different people on my “contacts” list. That way, I would know who was calling (and whether I wanted to pick up) without digging out the phone and checking the caller ID.

The first place we stopped was the Verizon store at the one of the biggest shopping malls in the city. Oh my god, what a zoo! It took fifteen minutes for someone to get around to acknowledging us and “putting us in the queue.” Which meant that we were now officially in line and would be waited on approximately when hell froze over. We spent about fifteen more minutes looking at the available options and being bombarded with the loud alternative music they felt set the proper mood to drop a whole lot of cash on useless technology. And then I leaned into the husband’s ear and hollered that we could probably make it to Costco before they closed.

Hands over our ears, we fled out to our car and down the freeway to Costco--a less 21st century in- your-face venue for purchasing technology, certain that it we could get what we needed in spite of the lack of atmosphere. Sans the music and the crowds, we were able to settle in and sign our lives away for another two years of essential cell phone service.

So now I have a new phone, complete with a camera, games, and an MP3 player I had absolutely no interest in owning. For the low, low price of $120, even though I've been a Verizon customer for almost a decade. Oh, and if I should remember to follow up on the impossible paperwork trail, I'll be getting a whopping $40 rebate in the mail in about a year.

Bleah! There’s nothing like purchasing your own little bit of 21st century technology for making you feel that you have been screwed without even a peck on the cheek.

Tags: cel phones 2